Producer Sacre, associate producer Lerner, reporter Carleton, cameraman
Boocock, and sound technician Crane arrived in the capital, Malabo, on May
9 with 10-day visas issued in Paris. Carleton told CPJ they had gone to
report on the booming oil industry, the allocation of state oil revenue,
and how the president was benefiting from it.
On the evening of May 12, a government minister came to a café where crew
members were eating and told them "if you get on the plane leaving tonight
for Madrid, nobody will be thrown in jail," according to Carleton. He told
CPJ that he and his colleagues were at the airport an hour later, where
three men, including the director of national security and the president's
brother, supervised a search of their luggage. Authorities confiscated computer
memory cards, Carleton said.